Originally Posted by
Herkflyr
I don't disagree. But we also tend to underestimate modest pay raises, on time, compounded on top of each other. Think .300 hitter who gets a lot of doubles and a fair share of HRs, vs a .220 hitter who usually strikes out, but occasionally hits an upper-deck HR that makes it on the highlights. Most managers will take hitter #1.
It seems we are still doing good things here, and I'm encouraged by the latest notepad.
It's not baseball. This would work only if you weren't negotiating with people being paid millions of dollars to pay as little as possible on one specific deal. If you continually accept the first middling offer, it is in the interest of the other party to keep offering less and less to play into the strategy of you accepting a fast deal over a good one. Management is paid to "increase shareholder value" which here means find a way to spend less money on labor. It is in their interest to offer the least possible, including $0.0 by just dragging things out asking for concessions, or offering inflation_rate - n%.
Any strategy that doesn't understand this fundamentally misses how labor loses value over time. Management has no time pressure to make a deal unless you make pressure. They aren't selling anything, they are agreeing to pay for what they are already getting and I guess will keep getting at no extra cost. They don't lose money UNTIL they make a deal, unless something changes.